It is almost time for some Pennsylvania students to get out of the classroom and into a canoe.
The Chesapeake Bay Foundation's Pennsylvania Rivers and Streams Environmental Education Program is for students in grades 4-12. It takes place in the spring and fall.
Kassie Fenn, student leadership and education coordinator for the Chesapeake Bay Foundation in Pennsylvania, said the program is mobile, so students meet up with educators for field trips to explore waterways in their communities. She pointed out it is a way to boost critical thinking skills and connect children to their local ecosystems.
"They're able to spend the day paddling in canoes or streamside, and for many students, it's their very first experience like this," Fenn explained. "They're able to collect macroinvertebrates -- they're these aquatic insects that live in our streams -- and learn about how water quality data tells us a story about the health of Pennsylvania waterways."
Fenn noted across three states in the watershed -- Pennsylvania, Maryland and Virginia -- more than 1.5 million students have been part of the foundation's programs in the last 50 years.
Fenn stressed the Foundation also works with teachers through a Chesapeake Classrooms Program, with professional learning opportunities through workshops and courses for classroom teachers, as well as school administrators.
"We focus on kind of the evolving needs of science standards across the watershed, the Chesapeake Bay watershed," Fenn emphasized. "And then really help to work towards building their efficacy, and increasing student achievement and engagement, while also building foundational knowledge and environmental literacy."
Fenn added an event known as "BioBlitz" coming up in April at the Vincent DeFilippo Nature Preserve will include 55 students from various grade levels in three schools. They will take part in activities like water quality testing, tree planting, fish surveys and more, as a way to learn about restoration and conservation.
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A 1,086-acre property in Putnam County has been secured as part of the ongoing effort to protect the Ocala to Osceola Wildlife Corridor, a critical pathway for Florida's wildlife.
Located east of Gainesville and midway between Orlando and Jacksonville, the newly protected land will provide vital habitat for species such as the Florida black bear and help maintain the ecological connectivity essential for their survival.
The O2O initiative, a partnership of public agencies and private organizations, aims to conserve 100 miles of natural and working lands forming a crucial link in the Florida Wildlife Corridor.
Lauren Day, Florida director for The Conservation Fund, pointed out the importance of conservation.
"The Florida Wildlife Corridor is critical for so many reasons," Day outlined. "It's protecting habitat for wide-ranging animals like the Florida panther and Florida black bear, especially in the northern part of the state. Even more than that, it's really about protecting our water, our way of life. It's just a really exciting effort."
Day noted Florida's rapid development heightened the urgency of protecting the corridor, which threatens to fragment habitats and cut off wildlife migration routes. According to the Florida Department of Environmental Protection, the state loses an estimated 100,000 acres of natural land to development each year, putting immense pressure on conservation efforts.
The property will be transferred to the state later this year for permanent conservation under the Florida Forever Program, a state-funded initiative to preserve Florida's natural lands. However, advocates like Day warned more funding and political will are needed to protect the corridor and ensure its viability.
"It's very urgent," Day stressed. "Florida is still one of the fastest growing states in the country, I should say, so, you just have to look around and you can see that things are changing quickly here, so the time to protect this land is now."
Advocates pointed to wildlife data, which show the corridor allows wide-ranging species to roam freely, ensuring genetic diversity and protecting ecosystems to support both wildlife and human communities.
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A bill which could approved the injection of large amounts of carbon emissions or industrial carbon dioxide into underground Ohio wells is raising concern.
Currently, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency makes carbon storage decisions but if House Bill 358, pending in Columbus, becomes law, companies would be allowed to capture carbon emissions from industrial facilities and bury them underground.
Tom Torres, hydrogen program director for the Ohio River Valley Institute, said U.S. regulators and developers have very little hands-on practical operational experience with the technology.
"This is largely untested," Torres emphasized. "It's an immensely complex kind of operation that is taking place in a very poorly understood geology, and particularly a geology that is also peppered with holes from the oil and gas industry."
In 2020, a CO2 pipeline in Satartia, Mississippi, ruptured, causing 200 residents to evacuate and hospitalizing 45 people. Another fear is carbon injection companies may obtain underground pore space -- empty space between particles of soil, sand, rock and sediment -- without a landowner's consent. According to the site NationalGrid.com, carbon capture storage removes CO2 emissions, which could help address climate change.
Under the newly amended bill, liability for cleanup, disaster response and repair costs would fall to taxpayers.
Randi Pokladnik, an environmental scientist and activist, sees a lack of experience and knowledge in maintaining CO2 transport and injection wells on the part of Ohio regulators, which she called dangerous.
"I think the biggest issue for me, being a scientist, is the fact that the legislatures will only listen to what the oil and gas industry tells them," Pokladnik stressed. "They do not have the science background to be making decisions like this."
Critics said injection wells are not maintained properly and pressurized carbon could affect groundwater supplies businesses and homes depend on.
Carol, Jefferson and Harrison counties are targeted for the storage wells by a Texas-based company, Tenaska. Under the measure, companies would receive extensive tax credits for storing CO2.
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A coalition of environmental groups has filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration, challenging its revocation of President Joe Biden's protections for 625 million acres of federal waters from offshore drilling.
The lawsuit, filed in federal district court in Alaska, argued the Trump administration's action is illegal and threatens coastal communities, ecosystems and marine life.
Christian Wagley, coastal organizer for the advocacy coalition Healthy Gulf, emphasized the importance of protecting Florida's coastline from drilling.
"The water is clean, our beaches are clean, and Florida's economy really depends on that," Wagley asserted. "That's kind of the quintessential experience in Florida is being able to go to the beach and have the clean white sand and blue-green water and that would be directly threatened by expanded oil and gas drilling in the Gulf of Mexico."
The legal challenge focuses on Biden's decision in his final days in office to withdraw vast areas of the Outer Continental Shelf -- including parts of the Atlantic, Pacific, Arctic and eastern Gulf of Mexico -- from oil and gas leasing and drilling. President Donald Trump argued boosting fossil fuel production is essential to meeting energy demand and maintaining U.S. leadership in global energy markets.
Environmental groups, however, contend the move is illegal and threatens ecosystems, coastal communities and the transition to clean energy.
Devorah Ancel, Environmental Law Program senior attorney for the Sierra Club, said the move also violates the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act.
"That is an illegal action," Ancel contended. "The law only allows presidents to withdraw those areas for protection. It doesn't allow presidents to revoke or cancel those withdrawals of previous presidents."
The lawsuit highlighted the ecological and economic risks of offshore drilling, particularly in the Gulf of Mexico, which the Trump administration is attempting to rename the Gulf of America, where 99% of U.S. offshore drilling occurs. Ancel pointed to the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill as a stark example of the dangers posed by offshore drilling.
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